Resumen de Titanium dioxide: : Year in Review 2015

Industrial Minerals

• In April, IM received reports that Chinese TiO[subscript]2 producers were pushing to raise prices for the pigment, however with non-Chinese producers offering heavily discounted cargoes of chlorite-route TiO[subscript]2 to buyers in Asia-Pacific, these efforts did not translate into price increases for mineral sand suppliers.

  By November, prices for TiO[subscript]2 in China had reportedly fallen by around $400/tonne since their May-to-June 2015 peak, as the industry continued to suffer from overcapacity and shrinking export demand. Slow progress in upgrading manufacturing facilities to more efficient chloride-route production technology, which is less environmentally damaging and produces higher quality TiO[subscript]2 than the traditional sulphate-route process more widely used in China, also added pressure to margins.

  Towards the end of the year, prices for rutile TiO[subscript]2 in China fell further as slower buying activity and growing inventories prompted producers to give in to lower bids. Ilmenite and rutile prices tracked those of TiO[subscript]2 in 2015, although the pace of decline was slower than in the previous year.